Outside the Circles of Time is a significant work originally published in 1980 and later reissued in an expanded second edition in 2008, newly typeset and featuring many original illustrations reproduced in colour along with previously unpublished artwork by Steffi Grant. This book is the fifth volume in Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Trilogies.
The book’s scope is broad and ambitious — its jacket describes it as revealing “a network more complex than was ever imagined,” invoking imagery similar to **H. P. Lovecraft’s visions of hidden forces at the edges of the cosmos.” Outside the Circles of Time weaves together a variety of esoteric and mystical ideas, drawing on sources such as Helena Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine, Aleister Crowley’s The Book of the Law, the mythical Necronomicon attributed (fictionally) to Lovecraft, and the occult research of Frater Achad.
A notable theme in the book is its discussion of the work of Soror Andahadna, a contemporary Priestess of Maat, whose explorations are seen by Grant as paralleling those of Frater Achad when he proclaimed the coming of the Aeon of Maat in 1948. Although more traditional Thelemic interpretations place the current Aeon as that of Horus and see Maat as far in the future, Grant’s text offers a reinterpretation that presents Maat as a present, mystical force accessible through specific occult insights.
However, the book is not limited to this theme alone. It serves as a rich tapestry that brings together many strands — from occult philosophy to cosmological speculation and symbolic interpretation — creating a deep and powerful current of thought. Grant’s aim, as articulated in its introduction, is not to prove propositions in a conventional sense, but to evoke an expanded state of consciousness through suggestion, symbolic language, and evocative imagery, inviting the reader to engage with subtle layers of meaning beyond rational analysis.